


At the Beginning

by DracoMaleficium



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Aging, Angst and Feels, Background Femslash, Bittersweet Ending, Blood, Harleen Quinzel/Poison Ivy, M/M, Sentimental, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 19:00:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12710994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DracoMaleficium/pseuds/DracoMaleficium
Summary: “My love, I’ve been proposing to you for a good twenty years.”





	At the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Another old project from my hard drive that I dusted off because I feel guilty and ashamed not posting anything in so long. This was initially going to be one of the weddings Bat-Mite arranges in "Bat-Mite and the Great Wedding Debacle," but at the time I decided that this idea doesn't really fit with the rest of that fic and should get its own oneshot if I ever get around to it; it's also why the style here is a little bit different, more detached than my usual fare. This is the revised version, with warnings for my usual theme of the batjokes getting older, general sentimentality and a scene of consensual knife/bloodplay by the end. 
> 
> Many thanks to [Ufonaut](http://ufonaut.tumblr.com) for proofreading and support! <33

The waters around the Slabside Penitentiary are frozen. Wind thrashes across the endless expanse of white, and catches on the still, silent block of the giant prison, shredding over the sharp points of watchtowers, crashing into cold, unmoving walls.

A small, lone helicopter fights its way through towards the prison, swaying precariously whenever a stronger gust hits it, mirrored by a twin image of itself traveling through the ice below. As it inches closer the ramparts burst into activity, guards running back and forth getting ready to meet it, until it finally manages to touch down in the yard where the wind isn’t quite as strong. 

Figures jump out. They’re all in protective gear, heads and faces shielded from the cold, uniforms matching those worn by the guards already inside. It’s far too cold to dawdle; the newcomers don’t waste any time hurrying for the shelter inside the walls, stomping through snow with their hands tucked under their armpits. 

Inside, it’s all business, names crossed off lists, orders dispatched, equipment distributed, sleeping quarters and shifts assigned. Orientation is a brisk affair in a place with turnover as bad as this; it has to be. This is the Antarctic. Regulations only allow for two months of work at a time, tops. Consequently hardly anyone bothers to match the faces to the names, much less memorize them. 

Good, Harley Quinn thinks, checking herself in the glass walls she passes to make sure that her mask and wig are still in place.

The very first chance she gets, she slips away from the group and into one of the many dark, long corridors. She doesn’t try to stay inconspicuous. No one bothers her. Her identification matches her face and nametag, and she walks with purpose, with conviction, like she knows the layout and has every right to be here. That’s enough to fool most people into thinking nothing’s wrong. 

She stops by the cell on the far end of the solitary row.

She stares at the prisoner number spray-painted on it, and gives herself a minute.

No longer than that, though; someone might catch her if she hesitates too long. She grits her teeth and swipes the clearance card she lifted off one of the officers in the lobby.

The light glares green. The heavyset doors move.

She steps inside.

It’s dark in here. Cold. The air, old and musky, stinks of metal and human when she takes a breath. 

She flips the light switch and shuts the door behind her, and faces the man inside. 

She says, “I got your letters.” 

The Joker is on his cot, reading. Half of his body is hidden under a threadbare blanket, but what’s visible looks skinny almost to the point of skeletal. His gaunt, skull-like face looks dry, cracking into a spiderweb of thin lines across skin that still looks white, but flakey, marred in places with uneven grayish patches where the acid burnt deeper, obvious now in the glaring light without the makeup to conceal them. His hair, overly long, fall over his eyes in messy, unwashed curls. The shadows under his eyes look like they have embedded themselves there permanently, and his red mouth seems bloody, torn and scarred without the lipstick to smooth over the damage from years ago. 

He looks up. His expression barely changes. 

“Hello,” he says with a small, benign smile. “Are you my new imaginary friend?”

“Don’t you even start,” Harley snaps. “You know who I am. I traveled miles to get here. We spent a fortune on this. You owe me.”

“It appears that I do,” the Joker muses. He puts the book away. “It’s good to see you, Harley. You’re looking very well.”

Harley’s face twitches. “Me, or the prosthetic mask? Ain’t gonna work this time, Mr. J. I haven’t been that girl in a long time.”

“So why did you come?”

“Hell if I know.” Harley sighs, leaning against the door. “Pity, probably. Or maybe I just wanted to see you beg.”

“You said you got my letters.”

“Yeah.”

“All the reasons are there. I did beg.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I wanted to hear you say it to my face.”

Silence.

“Please, Harley.”

She stares at him, and he never looks away. 

“You look terrible,” she says, blinking, but not dropping her gaze all the same. “Sound terrible, too.”

“Turns out all that Antarctic air doesn’t agree with me,” the Joker offers, chuckling weakly. “It’s the moisture, dear. Gets in my joints.”

“Boohoo. You gonna have to try harder than that if you wanna play the pity card this time around.”

“Tell me, Harley, are you… happy?”

She looks taken aback. It takes her a while to answer.

“I _was_ ,” she says, “before you butted into my life again.”

“I’m glad to hear it. No, really. You… deserve it. As much as anyone deserves anything in this great big valley of slime, I suppose. But you see, Harley, I’m… not.”

“Yeah, I figured.” For a moment Harley looks like she wants to close her arms around her chest in a defensive position, but stops herself. “Good,” she says instead.

“I have a plan to change that. You’re the only one who can help me. After that, I’ll… I’ll be out of your hair for good.”

“Gee, I wonder where I’ve heard _that_ tune before.”

“If you did read my letters, you know that I mean it this time.”

“I couldn’t care less if you mean it or not, you pasty son of a bitch.”

“And yet,” the Joker’s eyes flash with a dull hint of light for the first time, “you’re here.”

They look into each other’s eyes.

Then the Joker whispers, “I don’t want to die here, Harley. Please.”

Silence.

“Stay close,” Harley says at last. She sighs. “Holy Robin panties, I can’t believe I’m actually doing this.”

The Joker gets to his feet with some difficulty. “It’s been a while since my last prison break,” he mutters, looking almost apologetic. “I’m no longer the young spry clown I used to be.”

Harley looks at him, and just for a blink, her expression softens. “Well,” she says, “didn’t you say once that breaking outta the slammer is like riding a unicycle? You’ll get in the zone soon enough, Mr. J.”

He smiles at her. He grabs a tattered, patched-up teddy bear from the cot. “Let’s go.”

She snaps a pair of handcuffs over his bony wrists, opens the door and shoves him out, none too gently. When other guards stop them she flashes her ID card and invokes “exercise hour,” and they nod, and grin, knowing what the code really means. One or two of them look after them with quizzical looks, but no one stops them. Harley’s ID card checks out at every scan and the Joker hasn’t tried to escape in almost a decade; he looks meek as a lamb now, head bowed, shuffling along after the new guard in his pink slippers clutching his old teddy bear. He says nothing when other guards bump into him and laugh. The two of them make it to the yard and through it without trouble.

It’s only when they step into one of the narrow staff-only corridors that things start to get hot. People get more inquisitive. They try to stop them. Harley Quinn reaches for her gun and shoots them on the spot, and uncuffs the Joker, passing him a second gun that she snatched from the belt of one of the fallen guards. Together, moving seamlessly, covering each other’s backs, they carve out a path to one of the smaller hatches leading out into the snow, marking their trail in blood.

The Joker laughs as his bullets hit home. He’s beginning to show off, just a little. Harley glances at him over her shoulder and her face is impossible to read. 

Together, grunting, they manage to wrestle the hatch open. They stumble out into the snow and shut the entrance before the other guards spill out after them. Harley blocks it with her truncheon. 

There is a snow scooter waiting for them outside. Astride it sits a woman with a crown of flaming red hair, her green skin covered in furs. 

“Get on,” she commands.

“So good to see you, Pammy, love,” the Joker calls into the wind, jumping into the passenger cart. He shrugs into the fur-lined coat he finds there as Harley takes the seat behind the red-haired woman. “Beautiful as ever.”

“Well, _you_ look like shit,” Poison Ivy parries coldly. “Hold on.”

Harley closes her arms around her middle. The engine starts just as bullets start hailing at them from the ramparts. The machine cuts through snow easily, swift and agile, pushing against the wind, leaping and weaving over glistening white heaps. Bullets fly after them, and soon, other scooters shoot out from the still black fortress in pursuit. 

Out of nowhere, a wall of vines erupts from under the snow, blocking their path, obscuring everything. 

The red-haired woman doesn’t look back as they speed away. The Joker does. He laughs, hoarse and brittle, and his voice scatters on the wind.

 

*** 

 

“It’s been a month since his escape,” says Commissioner Sawyer, stiff collar lifted, hands tucked into the pockets of her greatcoat. “This is the first sign of life he gave since then. It’s… not exactly his style.” 

“No,” Batman agrees quietly, touching his gloved fingers to the fine florid print on a square piece of white cardboard. “It’s not.”

“When was the last time you visited with him?”

Batman raises his head. Commissioner Sawyer doesn’t even blink.

“Come on,” she says. “You didn’t honestly expect I wouldn’t find out, did you?” 

When Batman says nothing, she sighs, running a finger through her short blond head. “It’s fine,” she says. “Okay? It’s fine. If I had a problem with you visiting him in the Slab I’d have put a stop to it when it first started.”

“I was… interrogating him.” 

“For eight years?”

Batman looks back to the square of cardboard in his hands. He says nothing.

“So,” Commissioner Sawyer prompts, “your last visit?”

“Four months ago,” he whispers.

“And did he give you any clues that he might be thinking of escaping? What he’s planning? Anything?”

“No. Nothing.”

Commissioner Sawyer doesn’t look convinced. “What about Ivy and Quinn? Any leads on them?”

“No.”

“All right, so… what do you make of this?” 

“This seems…” Batman starts, and doesn’t finish the sentence. His attention is on the little square in his hand. 

“You gonna RSVP?” the Commissioner asks after a moment.

“He didn’t give me enough time.”

“It’s a trap.”

“Yes.”

“Do you need backup?”

“No.”

“Well then…” Commissioner Sawyer shifts uneasily on her feet. “Good luck. Call when you need us to come in.”

Batman nods. He hides the little cardboard invitation in one of the compartments on his belt and climbs the ledge. He jumps and swings onto the nearest rooftop, and then another, and another. Back at the Gotham Central station, Commissioner Sawyer watches him without a word, letting the winter winds whip and lash against her.

 

***

 

Batman stops on the outskirts of downtown, at the point where bright Christmas lights give way to the dim gloom of the docks. He looks out at the looming chimneys and bulks of the Industrial District for a moment before he activates his comm link. 

“Oracle.”

“I’m here,” replies a female voice, cold and impersonal. 

“The Joker —”

“I know.”

“I’m going in.”

“Should I send —”

“Don’t send anyone. I can handle this on my own.”

“Congratulations, that’s officially the stupidest thing you’ve said all year. I’m telling Tim where you are. He’s the closest.”

“Don’t,” Batman repeats. His voice rings with steel. “He doesn’t want anyone else here. Neither do I.”

“So you’re gonna jump straight into a trap.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“Okay, well, will you at least tell me where you’re going? So I know where to look for your corpse.”

Batman looks up into the distance, at one of the factories that sits still and dark over the mists gathering over Gotham River.

He says, “No,” and ends the connection. 

He starts to make his way towards Ace Chemicals. 

The factory is silent and empty as he slowly approaches the tall rusted fence. The windows are boarded up, the chimneys still and defunct as they have been for years. Batman flies over the barb wire on top of the fence and touches down on the other side with an expression that gives nothing away, and slowly, he begins to cross the yard.

He stops when he spots the first piece of paper, pinned to the ground with a brick to protect it against the wind. He bends down and picks it up.

It’s a newspaper clipping, old and nearly faded. The picture is still discernible though, showing a tall, thin, white-skinned man in a purple suit being escorted into a police van in handcuffs. Some of the words haven’t quite faded out yet, and the headline yells, MADMAN TRIES TO POISON WATER RESERVOIR. MASKED VIGILANTE SAVES CITY. 

Batman runs his thumb over the picture with something that looks almost like tenderness before he drops it to the ground — where the wind immediately snatches it up and carries it over the fence toward the river — and walks up to the next one. 

There’s a trail of them, old newspaper clippings that litter the ground like breadcrumbs, marking the way towards one of the back doors to the factory. Batman gazes at all of them but doesn’t pick them up as he makes his way along. He doesn’t have to. He has the very same collection of clippings back at his own home and knows exactly what they depict, every last one of them. 

Still, the closer he gets the slower he is. By the time he reaches the door he stops entirely. He takes a deep breath. He looks over his shoulder at the trail of clippings.

Only then does he finally push the door open. 

As soon as he does, music booms all around him. The Mendelssohn waltz. It ripples in deep echoes around the vast space of the abandoned factory, coming back in ghoulish, distorted scraps of sound. 

Batman looks at his feet. A long plush blood-red carpet rolls up a path down into the gloom, and on either side of it rows of long benches arranged like church pews seat the crème de la crème of Gotham’s underworld: Two-Face in his two-color suit, and Penguin in a tailored black tux with the umbrella resting on his lap. Riddler in green and purple, bowler hat on his head, question mark cane in his hand. Scarecrow in his rags. Mr. Freeze and Clayface, and Scarface with a new handler, and the Mad Hatter, and Solomon Grundy, and Killer Croc, and Bane, and Poison Ivy, all of them in their most iconic work clothes, some of which hadn’t seen the light of day in years.

Catwoman is there too, sitting in the first row, wearing the tight black catsuit she hadn’t worn in five years, and she gives Bruce a small smile when their eyes meet across the hall.

Legends, all of them. Some still struggling to shine, most of them faded, settled, burnt out. Touched by time as much as Batman himself is. They all turn their heads and gaze expectantly at Batman as he progresses down the carpet towards a single pulpit illuminated in a cross of two cold white spotlight beams. Presiding behind the pulpit is Harley Quinn, wearing her old mask and jester costume. And beside her…

“Darling,” Joker says, his smile calm, almost serene. “So glad you could make it.”

There’s not a thread of purple anywhere on him this time. Instead he’s wearing a formal black tux, and over his shoulders drapes a long, stark red cloak. There’s an oblong helmet in the same shade of red resting at his feet by the pulpit, and his green hair is neatly cut, slicked back. In his hands there’s a bouquet of black roses. His back is ramrod straight, his presence a picture of power and resolve even despite the visible frailty of his body when he waits for Batman to make his way over to him.

Once Batman stops at the pulpit Joker nods at Harley. She presses a button on a remote and the Mendelssohn comes to an abrupt end.

Joker offers the flowers to Batman.

“What’s all this about?” Batman asks instead of accepting.

“I think you know,” Joker replies calmly. 

Batman doesn’t deny it. He sweeps his gaze over the assembled villains and then looks at Joker with something that almost looks like reproach.

“Shouldn’t you have proposed first?” he asks quietly.

Joker lets his smile stretch when he says, “My love, I’ve been proposing to you for a good twenty years.”

Again, Batman doesn’t dispute that. He points at Joker’s tux. “And this?”

“Appropriate, isn’t it? Life. Death. New beginnings, the circle of life… Sentimental, I know, but I think the occasion rather calls for it. At our age, we’re allowed a little bit of sentiment.”

Batman appears to consider this for a moment.

He says, “It’s not your color.”

“No, but it’s yours. I rather hoped this little detail wouldn’t be lost on you.”

Batman nods. “It isn’t.”

“Will you get on with it, clown,” Penguin demands from his pew. “We had a deal! I’ve got better things to do than sit here and watch your blasted masquerades.”

“And to think I ever missed the bastard,” Riddler mutters under his breath.

“Ah, yes.” Joker assumes a grin that’s more in line with his younger self as he inclines his head at Cobblepot. “Thank you, Ozzie. Right you are! Do forgive us the little flirtation, friends, Batman and I haven’t seen one another in a dog’s age and there is _so much_ catching up to do… But first, our deal. I promised you a spectacle, didn’t I? Well, here it comes. 

“Batsy dearest,” he turns to Batman, who watches him without a move, “either you marry me right now or this whole place goes kablooey.”

The pews erupt in chaos. Penguin is up on his feet and cursing, Scarface launches into attempts to bribe Joker to let them go, Two-Face exclaims “That was never the plan, you maniac!”, Catwoman is already on the move looking for a way out, Croc looks like he’s ready to rush Joker and tear him limb from limb, Poison Ivy has her arms crossed over her chest and arching an eyebrow as she gazes at Harley, while Harley herself turns a hard, unreadable glare at Joker…

“Everybody quiet,” Batman commands, and somehow even though he never raises his voice it carries over the outraged pandemonium anyway. 

One by one, the villains settle down in their places again. All except Catwoman, who’s still hard at work checking the emergency exits.

“It’s no use,” she calls out, “the shitstain had them all blocked.”

“Indeed, kitty cat, so you might as well sit down,” Joker informs her. “And don’t bother with the skylights either, I took care of everything. Now, Batsy, listen well. There’s five bombs planted around this entire factory. The detonator’s on me. It’ll only take a split second for me to press the button and send our entire merry assembly to the great green pastures. And not only that! I’m sure you realize what’ll happen if _this_ particular place blows, hmmm? All those chemicals! All those toxins that gave me such a spring to my step once upon a time! They’ll be in the air. They’ll be in the water. And the good people of Gotham, why, they’ll breathe us, they’ll drink us and they won’t ever forget us or our farewell gift to this city of monsters… for generations to come.”

“Unless I marry you?” Batman asks quietly.

“Unless you marry me. Then our wedding present to Gotham will be its continued existence — such as it is.”

“Why?”

Joker shrugs. “I told you, I’m getting sentimental in my old age. A wedding, or a funeral… It’s an ending either way. And frankly, my love, I’m tired. As long as there _is_ an ending, at this point… I’m fine with both.”

For a long, long while Batman doesn’t say anything. 

Then he points to the other villains.

“You should let them go.”

“No, I don’t think so,” Joker says calmly. “They’re all as much a part of your story as I am. If you and I go, so should they. There’s not much point to them carrying on if you’re not around. The legend lives tonight, or it dies. All of it.”

Commotion starts up in the pews again as some of the villains rise with fresh protests. Some of them shout. Some try to force their way to Joker. 

Harley quells them all with a meaningful stare, and after a moment Catwoman helps as well. There is something in both their faces that works; eventually the group settles down again among angry grumbling.

Joker and Batman hardly seem to notice. They stand there at the altar across from one another with the blood red carpet between them, Joker still holding the flowers, smiling that serene little smile of a man who’s finally made his peace with life and death alike. 

There’s no telling what’s going on in Batman’s head. The cowl effectively hides any emotion that might be crossing his face under a shield of a perpetually angry, tortured frown sculpted into rubber and kevlar. But even then, the cowl and cape and armor can’t hide the one indisputable fact about him that everyone in the room notices in stark relief for the first time: he’s old. He wears his age better than the prison-tired Joker but even so it’s still obvious in the way he holds himself here and now, like just standing up straight is a struggle. Like keeping his head up and his shoulders squared takes a toll on him. 

Like he wouldn’t mind ending things on his own terms either. 

He takes his time answering, and then points out quietly, “This wouldn’t even count as a legal marriage, you know that.”

“It’s cute how you say that like you expect me to care,” Joker parries. “Come on, darling. You know what this is really about. You know what actually matters.”

Batman studies him for another long moment. He whispers, “Maybe I do.” 

And then he reaches out to take the flowers from Joker, and nods at Harley, and quietly says, “Let’s get on with it.”

Joker’s smile hardly changes. He nods, more to himself than to Batman as if accepting a judgment, and stands closer to Batman, extending his hand.

Batman takes it. For a while nobody says anything.

Finally Harley, her expression tight, clears her throat and intones, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate a union a long time in the making.”

She glances to Joker, and smirks. He returns it with a calm smile of his own. If anyone paid closer attention, they would notice that Batman’s hand squeezed Joker’s a little harder.

“Now I know we all got places to be and we’re all eager to not get blown up so I’ll make this quick.” Harley sweeps her gaze across the assembly. “Anyone here got a problem with these two losers finally making it official?”

Silence. And then — 

“Don’t _you_?”

“I heard that, Scarface!” Harley glares at the puppet. “I got my own wifey sitting right here and I swear I’ll shoot the face off the next loser who tries to dredge up ancient history. No arguments, I take it?”

Another moment of silence, and then the attention of the room — everyone except Batman and the Joker, who seem far too absorbed in one another — turns to Catwoman.

She shrugs, examining her diamond-tipped claws. 

“Oh, just let them at it,” she judges. “They deserve each other.”

Someone in the crowd snorts. Harley nods and mutters, “Ain’t that the truth.” She clears her throat again. “You two wanna recite any vows now?”

“My script is 30 pages long,” Joker says, and a few of the villains groan. Joker smiles wider. “Don’t worry, my friends, I’m not going to read them. I’m saving that for later.” He winks at Batman. “There’s bits there unfit for minors.”

He falls silent then, and the communal surprise at the coy briefness is palpable. The Joker’s never been able to resist wallowing in his own voice, especially when there’s an audience, but…

Maybe there really isn’t a whole lot to be said, here. Nothing he hasn’t said a hundred times over in the past. In any case Batman seems to understand, and the corner of his mouth gives the tiniest twitch.

All eyes turn to him now, and if Batman realizes this, he doesn’t give any indication of being at all discomfited. He keeps his own eyes locked on Joker. Eventually Harley prompts him with a quiet, “B-man? You… wanna say anything?”

It takes a moment.

Then Batman says, “I would have said yes without the bombs.”

It’s clear that the words don’t register with the assembly all at once. But soon enough Harley’s face splits into a grin, and the rogues shift and stare wide-eyed in their pews, and Joker’s smile cracks into something bright and warm that suddenly takes years off his face.

“I thought you might have,” he says, stepping closer, “but you can’t blame me for not being sure. Besides, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to give you some plausible deniability. We all know how much you love your plausible deniability, you silly old man.”

“Maybe I got tired of that.” Batman smirks, also taking a step closer. “Are the bombs even real?”

“Of course they are. You know me better than that. I did mean every word.”

Batman touches Joker’s face.

“I know you did.”

“Er… you may kiss the groom?” Harley says, but she’s still grinning as she does because the two men in front of her hardly need any prompting; they are kissing already, touching their lips together slowly as if they’re both eager to make their first kiss last. Batman lets the bouquet of black roses drop to the floor and puts both his hands on Joker’s hips, and in turn Joker cups his face over the cowl to hold it close. When their faces angle to fit against one another it’s like decades’ worth of buildup suddenly releases into the hall. 

The rogues watch in stunned silence, but nobody looks away. And then Harley, who all of a sudden looks almost as soft when she first took to the streets years ago, says, with glistening eyes, “Okie doke! Without further a-doo-doo, by the power of love, coercion and blackmail, invested in me by the online course I did last night, I now pronounce you bat-husband and clown-husband. Rings, puddin’?”

“Not to worry, Harls,” Joker tells her, pulling away from Batman just enough to turn his head toward her. His cheeks are glowing a faint pink and there’s a bright, happy spark in his eyes, and you could almost see the energy and spirit of his much younger self glimmering through. “I’ve got it covered.”

“You’re scheming something again,” Batman accuses with his lips brushing Joker’s ear, and Joker giggles for the first time that night, turning back to him.

“You know I am,” he whispers, running a gloved finger over the smears of lipstick on Batman’s mouth. 

It looks like they’re about to start kissing again and Harley apparently thinks so too because she reaches behind her to retrieve a bag of rice, then proceeds to throw a handful of the grains at the newlyweds with laughter that sounds just a little bit wet. 

Joker nods, taking that as his cue. Ignoring the grains of rice stuck in his hair he reaches into the inner pocket of his tux and takes out a smartphone.

“Boys?” he calls, looking out at the doors. “You can open up now.” He slips the phone back into his pocket and smiles graciously at his fellow rogues.

“Thank you all for coming. I’m afraid the reception is a private affair but I do hope you will drink our health at the Iceberg Lounge later tonight.”

“Hey,” Penguin protests, “I never…” he trails off, looking at the two enemies still standing close, Batman’s arms casually resting on Joker’s hips. He sighs, and something in his expression loses an edge. “Oh, what the hell,” he shrugs. “This does call for a celebration. Drinks are on me. And you two, if you don’t end up killing one another tonight and ever wanna have a private evening… a _quiet_ one, mind you… there might be a table for you at the back. Just… let me know in advance so I can hide all the expensive and breakable things beforehand.”

“You’re too kind, Ozzie,” Joker enthuses, and Penguin looks away as if embarrassed. 

“I suppose you’re not the only one getting sentimental, clown,” he mumbles.

“Well, that’s been tremendously disappointing and vaguely sickening,” Two-Face judges, getting to his feet. “I’m out of here.” 

He promptly stalks over to the single newly-opened door, followed closely by the others. Penguin and Riddler are among the last to leave, both shooting lingering glances over their shoulders. Riddler allows himself a small smirk before he turns to Penguin and whispers, “Riddle me this. When is a joke not a joke?”

Penguin starts to mutter something grumpy in response and the two men leave before anyone gets to hear the answer. 

Ivy is lingering behind, waiting for Harley, who gracefully leaps over the pulpit to the other side. She hesitates for a moment, looking conflicted, and then kisses both Joker and Batman on their cheeks. 

“You,” she jabs Joker in the chest with a pointed finger, “owe me big time. You better believe I’m gonna be collecting when the time comes. Till then, stay away from me.

“And you, B-man!” she turns to Batman, who bears the weight of her gaze with good grace. “I know this clown here is a no-good lowlife who doesn’t deserve it, but you gotta treat him right, you hear me? I’ll know if you don’t. Oh, and in the interest of domestic bliss, make sure you got extra blankets. Mr. J’s a hogger with a bad case of cold feet. And make sure he eats his greens, not just junk food. Better leave him alone when he gets stroppy, and don’t ever let him watch _I Love Lucy_ late at night, and only get him the high shelf skin care products, and be ready to have your house stinking of chemicals all day everyday, and —”

“ _Harley_.”

“You know what, I’ll just slip you a manual later,” Harley stage-whispers to Batman. She nudges him with her elbow. “Not like you need it. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, ‘kay? Coming, hotness!” she calls to Ivy, then darts over to her, grabs her hand and leads her out of the plant, only stopping to let Ivy put an arm around her and pull her close.

That leaves only Catwoman, whose face is calm, but closed off. She regards the two men in front of her in silence, and smiles a little when Joker moves closer to Batman.

She shrugs, shaking her head. “I knew it,” she says, smirking, and waves at Batman. “No more excuses now, all right? You two have a good life. I’m out.”

And she is, walking away without a second glance, leaving the two men alone in the darkness punctuated by single beams of light.

Joker takes Batman’s hand and kisses it over the glove.

“Shall we?” he asks.

Batman smiles.

 

***

 

Much, much later, in the glass-walled penthouse across from Wayne Tower with the city laid out for them, the Joker sits up in bed and pulls out a knife.

“Your hand,” he whispers, and Batman gives it.

The Joker kisses the hand again, lips touching bare skin this time. He smiles.

And then, painstakingly, he cuts into the skin of Batman’s ring finger until he carves a complete circle, letting the blood drip onto the sheets.

He hands the knife to Batman. “Now you.”

Batman hesitates, but only for a minute. Joker’s smile stays the same, and the moan he gives when the knife cuts into his own finger is one of ecstasy, not pain.

Batman kisses his hand in turn. 

“Okay,” he says. “Now we need to clean this up.”

The Joker sighs and collapses back onto the pillow, but he does suffer through Batman cleaning both their fingers and disinfecting the cuts. He gazes out at the city when they lie down together, Batman’s arm around him.

“And now?” he muses.

Batman kisses his shoulder. “I don’t know. You were the mastermind.”

“Oh, you know me, darling. I’m never one to plan that far ahead. I still have half a mind to blow us both up, you know?” He turns in Batman’s embrace. “End on a high note.”

Batman looks out the window. 

“We could leave,” he whispers. 

“We could.” Joker turns to the city as well. “But we won’t, will we.”

“No.”

No, they won’t. The city is in their bones. It won’t let them go. 

The Joker gazes at the wound on his finger. 

“Still,” he says. “We have this.”

“Yeah.”

“As we’ve always had. It’s just, now it’s…”

Batman nods. “I know.”

“So? How do you want to take it?”

The Joker is looking up now, smiling, face swimming in light and shadow. 

Batman touches it. 

“Slow,” he says. “One day at a time. Until we run out.”

He leans down for a kiss, and the Joker grants it. He looks out over the city again, and considers. 

“I guess I could live with that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Joker's unique take on wedding rings was inspired by [this amazing piece by tormentedshadow](https://tormentedshadow.deviantart.com/art/Anniversary-433374534) \- blood warning. Hope you don't mind me referring it!


End file.
